Goodbye
by Echante
Summary: Addison/Derek. When Addison asks him to help her plan her funeral, its all he can take to not say no. Mentions of Mark/Addison


A/N: I lost my fucking ipod. You have no idea how grumpy that makes me. Last time, I was in a pissed off mood for the two weeks before I found it, let's hope this is faster…

* * *

You can't hear your thoughts in the secluded corner of a midnight dinner, hosting only yourself and one other patron who had obviously been beguiled in by the low-cost menu. The walls radiate with just audible music, turned up just enough to interrupt your passive reflection. The frown's been on your face awhile. Since you stumbled in.

She saunters in around twelve past midnight, the time showing no significance, and flashes you a disarming smile. Dark light filtered in from the sky and glinted against her auburn hair, enhancing it, enchanting it. The emerald dress shines against her body and it brings the green out from her eyes, shinning defiantly. This is how you remember her, in a time lost long ago. It's a vague memory, but it seems more right then its replacement.

"How are you?" She asks.

"Good." You nod at her, "Where'd you come from?"

"Charity dinner." She sighs at you while sliding in opposite your booth.

"With Mark?" You ask.

She smiles, "Yeah."

You nod, the topic still a little sore between the two of you. She reads you though, and shoots back with an amused smile, "How's Meredith?"

You chuckle, "Good. Good."

"Did you propose yet?"

"Yeah."

"She say yes?"

You grin, bittersweet and ironic, "Of course."

She laughs at your cockiness and you manage a small smile. And then the silence reemerges and she's fumbling with a fork, and your eyes train to the floor.

* * *

You laughed and cried when she asked you. It was just so _Addison-_like to want to plan her own funeral. "I'm very particular about this sort of thing!" She protested when you choked out absolutely not, "And Mark would probably have a break-down, and I feel guilty enough leaving him as it is."

"Aren't you scared Addy?" You asked her, and for a moment she drops her confident façade and confronts you, eyes soulful and scared, green flashing in alarm.

"This scares the shit out of me." She answers, but then her jaw clenches defiantly, her nose turns towards the air, "But that doesn't change anything. That doesn't help."

"You want to plan your funeral?" He asks to ensure he heard right the first time.

She nods vigorously, "Of course. If I'm going to die at forty-one, then I better have the best damn funeral on the damn planet!"

* * *

Its days like these when you really, really wish the divorce never happened. When you watched Mark's fingers graze against her cheek and saw her 100-watt smile shine on him. He's the one who distresses when hair pulls off of her head and blood spews out of her chest. But he's the one who holds her when she cries. And at times like these, you want to switch positions. You hate feeling fucking helpless.

"I want lilies." She informs you, slapping a wad of napkins down on the counter beside you. She's still breath-taking, red bandana replacing the hair chemo-therapy stole from her.

"White?" you ask and she nods.

She grins at you, "I knew something good came out of those twelve years of marriage."

You can't help it, the words hurt. They pummel against you and tackle your inner bones until spasms run through them. Her smile stops. "Derek?" she calls, "I'm so sorry!" And you think this is messed up, perverse, she's the one who's dying, she should be the one you're comforting.

"I'm fine." You manage, "So, white lilies?"

She nods, "And I want a wedding singer. Not some pathetic gospel choir singing funeral songs. No… maybe get the choir, but I want to hear 'Go Tell It on the Mountain!'" And she launches into a full set-list of songs. To the casual observer, she seems almost willing, and excited to die. But you, who has known and loved her all of twenty years, know what she's hiding. You know that she's grasping for the tiniest thread of control, you know that all of the planning is to make up for the unplanned part that awaits her.

* * *

The next round of chemo upsets her body and it doesn't respond well. She's shaved her head and replaced her hair with a New York Yankee's hat that is so obviously Mark's that it hurts. You watch from the outside as she cries and he holds her, crushing her against him, hoping desperately for some sort of tangible memory of her to last when she's been dead and buried. You pity the man. He only just got her. You had all of twenty years. Five years of dating. Twelve years of marriage. Three years of friendship.

The doctor had said even with chemo, her life time only increases about six-months. Being Addison, she'd rather fight than not live at all.

* * *

She's confined to bed-rest now. She doesn't have much time and everybody knows it. The heart monitor by her side beeps in rhythm, taunting, teasing. You know it drives Mark mad because he glares at it incessantly.

She asks for you, and you walk in slowly, gulping at the alarming grayness spreading across her ashen face. "Derek?" She croaks, and you bolt towards her, griping her hand.

"Shhh." You try to soothe, "I'm here."

She nods, "Promise me…" she gulps, "promise me that you'll take care of Mark… and you two will be friends again." She cracks a hint of a smile, "And I don't mean like half-assed friends like now… how you used to be… you know, before me."

You nod violently, not trusting yourself to talk.

"Make sure you have a winter wedding, Meredith seems like that type of person, with the snow and icicles… take sleigh rides with her."

You nod again and she closes her eyes, "Oh… And have a kid for me, and… if it's not too much trouble," she smack her lips, "Let Mark be Godfather?"

"Done." You whisper.

She smiles lazily, "Tell Mark I want him now."

And right at the intersection between you're exit and Mark's entrance, she whispers her final words, "I love you." She says. She slips away in the next instant.

* * *

The day of her funeral is bright and shinning, loud music pumps through the air, and unpronounceable dishes float throughout the room. An hour earlier, Mark invited you with him to read her will, she left half of her inheritance for your 'many children' and the rest spread itself across various charities and parties she said she would like to be thrown.

The birds are chirping as you deliver your final toast, "She can't be killed that one… she lives on in spirit and soul, and whenever I think of New York, or of angels, her image will be smiling down."

A/N: This might be shit, who knows, I'm pretty pissed off...


End file.
